Chapter 108: 93: A series of unfortunate events…

Auratic

As though it was the beginning of a dry season all nearby water sources were drying up to puddles and runnels, once vast swamps had dried up to cracked earth with rills running through it. It was considered fortunate even, as it was easier to march through dry swamp than wading through muddy waters. That was until they realized even pools and springs shriveled up, as if the land itself was opposed to their campaign. Wells of villages they themselves had raided and abandoned and were quickly dried up, after all they could only support hundred-odd people not thousands and thousands of soldiers on march. They couldn’t slow down for every passing hour meant time for the enemy to rally their troops and prepare their defenses. When they met up with their forward forces they had learned that this dry spell had affected the entire region surrounding Velauhart, along with intelligence and rumors.

For the intelligence, there still remained a single river that flowed out from the Black forest - the once mighty river was now reduced to a rocky brook. For thirsty horses and parched men, it had to do. Furthermore they learned that there might be some sort of armed militia skulking within the forest, their allegiance was disputed. If they were to proceed forwards and besiege Viveria, they had to be sure that their flanks were secure, but circumstances prohibited intensive combing of some folklore forest when time was of the essence, thus although regrettable, they had to split off some of their forces to protect their rear. 

As for the rumors, it was nothing but spook stories and superstitions surrounding the forest, how some men on patrol would disappear for days only to appear suddenly with no memories of their missing departure, those who returned had strange changes in their personality, how the trees in the forest whispered to each other, conspiring amongst themselves, how lost spirits wandered the forest and so on; the war counsel of the main army concluded that the repeated losses to this ‘militia’ had severely affected their morale and dismissed it as something unimportant to their plans. Whilst their forward forces were few in numbers, surely any militia would now fall to the full might of the Empire’s army if they dared to show themselves.

Near the said stream of river they stopped and camped, foraging for food, watering their horses and filling their waterskins to the brim. First it was the horses that were frightened. Well trained and disciplined they didn’t panic just yet, but they were alarmed and antsy. Then the rumbling sounds came, quiet and distant; it was drawing closer and closer. Unsure of what these sounds were, the troops were looking around in confusion, weapons at the ready. Then the horses ran off neighing wildly, slowly the order was breaking down. Then they could feel the rumbling in the earth, in their body, palpable trepidation set in. Soon someone shouted and all went to chaos.

A surge of gushing water, foaming white, barreling towards them from out the forest. They all tried to run and flee in search of highground, but it was far too late. Whole trees were uprooted and swept in the water’s wake. Those that were knocked unconscious by the debris carried by freshet before drowning could be considered lucky to not have suffered a slow death by suffocation. The entire plains were inundated to the brim.

Alicia saw how the water turned and led out of the forest from the mountain top and could garner a guess but why guess when you could just ask someone much closer to the incident.

Alicia was conflicted internally. On one hand she was quite chuffed with how well the embankments held up. On the other, she had just learned caused the deaths of hundreds if not thousands.

Few days later General Meginhard was being informed on the disastrous events by his lieutenants one after the other in his quarters. Although the losses were not severe, and almost no high-ranking personnel were directly affected, the effect was devastating. This campaign was a charade from the start, with the Empire on the verge of dissolving as a result of its hasty and treacherous beginning. The Emperor's aggressive conquests and military excursions were all that stopped it from collapsing. While this was sufficient enough to divert the populace's attention with wealth, glory, and slaves plundered from others, and to keep the disloyal elite at bay by handing over the new regions to be administered by them, it was merely a symbolic solution to an underlying problem that stayed unaddressed.

The Empire was formed from the unification of three kingdoms. Unfortunately due to how it was formed, the ruling party never earned the true allegiance of their counterparts. Despite its vast expanses of productive land and hardy people, the Empire was never granted the time it required to rest and heal owing to a rebellious elite seeking to further their own goals. The issue was that the aristocracy was not a unified entity to be pleased, but rather a slew of disparate households each with their own interests and allegiances to whichever party they belonged, along with its own wealth, power, and desire to outdo or otherwise overthrow the other - the Emperor included. On the inside, a silent civil war was ongoing. Due to the rapid expansions their economy was more or less supported solely by warfare. If they were to stop now, it would plunge the populace into general unrest, starvation or even an open revolt.

An opportunity that the aristocracy wouldn’t let go to seize power in a coup d’état. But with the presence of multiple parties it would devolve into a violent infighting between the houses. This invasion of Pyrinia was just one last desperate attempt of the Emperor trying to buy himself another day’s worth of time to rein things back under control. The other houses however had an interest in having this excursion fail for obvious reasons, sending in only a pitiable number of levies, and unwanted third and fourth sons to lead them. The bulk of the forces were knights directly in service to the emperor. Even now the useless lot thrown away by the nobles were bickering amongst themselves, trying to find blame in one another.

His instincts told him to investigate the cause of the river flood. Was it just an unfortunate timing or was there something greater at play here? Did the kingdom know of their plans? There was no clear answer and no time to spend investigating a dubious lead. Regardless if there was a reason or not they had to push on, even if it felt as if he was walking into a trap.

A runner entered the tent running in yanking open the flaps, not even bothering to ask for permission to enter. Such breach of standards would be swiftly and severely punished, but that seemed hardly a pressing affair right now.

Alicia was having a hard time understanding what was being described to her. Echo returned fairly quickly after she was told to assist with disrupting the supply chain. Interestingly, the Empire employed inhumans to do their biddings with the tried and true apparatus - the Bonds of Subjugation. A mass produced magical artifact able to instill obedience to its victims after being put on them.

‘Grove tender… that sounds familiar…’

It took Alicia some time to reach the place where they agreed to convene, she could largely skip places that she has been to thanks to trespass.

‘It’s strange, supposedly, teleportation magic does exist, but as far as I know, the energy cost increases exponentially with every little increase in distance so it is extremely limited in its range. I suppose that makes sense, if I’m understanding it correctly you’re basically taking mass from one point in space to another near instantaneously. But theoretically it could send you almost anywhere in the world, from one village to another or to another planet entirely.

The real head scratcher is that I think there was a theory or something that declared teleportation was not possible in science, except trespass functions eerily similar to Teleportation magic but it has a constant energy cost, whether it is stone’s throw away or… well… to the end of the world. It is almost always the same. So either trespass is such a broken spell that it casually violates the laws of thermodynamics or it works differently. It… opens a rift, a brief one that pulls me in one end and spits me out the other. So is it a portal? Are portals real? Can I bring someone with me I wonder…

Hm… between the entrance and exiting the rift created by trespass, I travel through the Void so briefly that I keep forgetting about that fact, could be because I hate spending even a single moment in that place… I guess my mind just blots it out. But if that’s the case… Space is not the same here as it is in the Void or the other way around. A single step in the Void could translate to miles and miles away here. Therefore, it could be interpreted as that Void is everywhere and is connected to every place… like some sort of ball that is wearing all of us. From here to… well anywhere, hell it might be able to really take me to the end of the universe, or beyond even. God, just trying to imagine what that actually means hurts my brain… You know what, it can stay a mystery. If it works, don’t fix it. I prefer to stay on my tiny island of sanity.’

Getting immersed in her own thoughts made the journey to conclude much sooner than she had anticipated. From far away she could see her familiars having stopped a herd of some sort of beastmen.

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‘Yeah those are centaurs, what the hell were they talking about- wait are those… leopard spotting…?’

She saw quadrupedal ungulate creature with their top-half vaguely resembling an androgynous adolescent human with flecked patches of fur on their body.

Both Delta and Echo greeted her in unison.

The many of them had been bound in layers and layers of webbing to the point that they could barely even turn their heads to face her. Even with their tight constraints, Alicia could feel the entire net quivering ever so slightly without even laying a limb on the web structure. With fear quite apparent in their eyes, it didn't take much to deduce that these beastmen were terrified beyond description, their trembling creating the quivering she felt in the web. It was almost a centaur, except instead of a horse, it had the body of a doe and was much smaller - a cervitaur.

Walking around to get a look at their hinds Alicia saw heavy saddlebags strapped to their bodies. The dull and heavy looking metal collar around their neck with faint magical energy told her more about their stories.

‘That’s strange, even with collars they should still have some escorts with them.’ She thought to herself, until she noticed the half cocooned soldiers hanging from the trees as though they were some fir tree decorations. ‘More like a gallows tree… well at least they’re not hung upside down. I think their limbs are being blood starved… it's an improvement from pooling blood into their brains; not by a lot but still.’

A threatening aura emanated from Delta and the brood of cave creepers laying in idle in the nearby trees.

And in just a second all of it vanished like seafoam bursting in air.

-Let me think… if only we could transport them somewhere else without drawing too much attention…”

>Notice. Gateway educement belonging to spell Trespass allows transportation of multiple entities for greater energy requirement.

Current anima nucleus available: 59

Acquisition cost: 3

Anima Nucleus remaining after action: 56

>Executing…

‘Let’s see what’s so different about this one…’

Other worldly energy coalesced into a singular point a few inches before her. Boring into the very essence of the fabric of reality itself, the space invisibly shuddered and trembled before contorting and collapsing in itself, creating a pinprick hole that led to a place forgotten by time itself. Then, as more and more energy seeped into the gap, the hole swelled, engorging itself and widening. The rift large enough to easily accommodate Alicia, it was complete. An unending blackness in relentless motion. It invited its maker to step through.

But she did not step through, no. More and more energy it took, larger and larger it grew. Before long it was a gaping maw that led to a familiar place, a forest she was well acquainted with. Alicia felt a little disappointed in herself for being so excited for remembering the image of a particular tree. It was a reminder for just how long she had spent within the woods. When its creation was complete, there was a sudden change in the atmosphere, the winds changed their course, and there was a draft that seemingly goaded them into stepping through the gap. All of this happened almost instantly. To the onlookers that have not been touched by the Void it appeared as though space distorted into revealing a massive hole open before them.

Auratic

You might get an SS or intermission next.

Trivia; Cave creepers have long enough legspan that they can easily "Tree Walk" in a forest where they can play floor is lava and move about by not stepping on the ground by hooking onto only on tree branches or tree barks. Alicia's cave creepers, lacking the webspinning capabilities compared to other species of Araneae in her service, have developed a unique hunting method of laying in ambush between trees and dropping down and attacking anything that moves beneath them. Their preferred diet is insectoids but they are not picky eaters thus if not for Alicia's command not to attack humanoids (Elves, Trolls and Humans in the forest) they wouldn't mind human flesh, though their actual target is not the meat itself but rather the bone marrow underneath it. They like the crunch of bones followed by the burst of bone marrow as it gives them the same stimulation as biting into a chitinous insect, human skin is too soft for that same sensation. As such they consider humans as poor food (compared to giant insects of Velauhart) and wouldn't actively hunt them regardless of Alicia's instructions in most situations.

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